Citizens Advisory Committee Meets To Discuss Warriors Arena

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A 16-person citizens advisory committee was announced by San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee today to provide community input on the city’s plans for a basketball arena along the waterfront for the Golden State Warriors.

The committee planned its first meeting for this evening to discuss the multi-purpose arena, which the Warriors plans to build by 2017 at Piers 30-32 just south of the Bay Bridge.

Members of the committee include neighbors, local business owners, and experts in planning, transportation and other fields.

The panel includes former city planning commissioner Ron Miguel, Shawn Paton, the owner of Red’s Java House, a small business currently at the site, and Jack Bair, senior vice president of the San Francisco Giants, whose ballpark would be a short distance away from the arena.

Lee said in a statement that he is looking forward to working with members of the committee “to develop a legacy project on our city’s waterfront that is inclusive and reflective of our diverse and world class city.”

Supervisor Jane Kim, whose district contains the project site and would be most affected by the arena and its construction, said the committee was part of “a meaningful and robust community engagement process” between the neighborhood and the project’s sponsors.

The Warriors, who have a lease at Oracle Arena in Oakland through 2017, announced in May that the team plans to move across the Bay to San Francisco and has proposed to build an arena that would host not just basketball games, but also major concerts and conventions.

The proposal would call on the Warriors to pay roughly $100 million to renovate Piers 30-32 prior to construction of the arena.

Following today’s 5:30 p.m. meeting in the Bayside Conference Room at Pier 1, the citizens advisory committee plans to meet three more times by the end of September–Sept. 6, 13 and 27 — to discuss the project.

The city is currently working with the team on the details of the project, which will be presented to the Board of Supervisors next month in a transaction term sheet.

An environmental impact report would then be developed for the project and presented to the city’s Planning Commission some time in 2013.

“We intend to work with our neighbors, and with the city, to put forward the best possible project,” Warriors president Rick Welts said in a statement. “We look forward to creating the most beautiful sports and entertainment complex in the nation.”